Windows Registry is a database that is used to store the configuration settings of Windows native system utilities and user applications. It includes default settings for the operating system components and user applications, as well as information related to hardware connected to the computer. It is used by device drivers, kernal, UI, SAM and other third party applications. As various processes and services are continuously running in the background, changes made by these components are also reflected in real-time in Windows Registry. Windows doesn’t provide any way to monitor these changes in real-time, however, back in January, we covered an application for Windows called RegFromApp, which let users monitor the changes made to registry by any selected application. Although quite handy, it did not provide you any kind of option to check and compare the changes made to Windows Registry. We have another software for our readers that might cope with this problem. Labeled as RegMerge, it is an application for Windows that allows you to compare one or more Windows registry (REG) files with current values in Windows Registry. This may come helpful in situations where you need to compare the changes between exported registry keys and current registry keys to decide whether the exported registry hives are to be restored or not. Additionally, it provides you with an option to merge all the selected changed registry keys into Windows registry.

While it is useful for checking the changes made by an application to critical Windows registry hives, you can also use it to compare your Windows registry values with that of another computer. To load a registry file in to the application, click Load REG File button available at the top left corner and navigate to the registry file. Once loaded, you will be able to view the HIVE name, Compare state (SAME or CHANGED), Key path, Value Name, Type, REG File Data and Current HIVE data. If you want to merge the changed registry values, select them from the list and click Merge Select Change Into Registry.

Any change between the loaded registry file and the current registry on your system can be viewed under REG file data and Current HIVE data fields.

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During testing, the application failed to read the Multi-String Registry values. It works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista. Windows 7 and Windows 8. Testing was done on Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.